Guest House

During the winter and spring I support myself, and am able to keep my house,  mostly by renting rooms to women visiting Tucson, and occasionally the renovated Airstream trailer in the back to both men and women.  If I'm feeling especially lively, everyone gets breakfast, but not always.  I never expected I'd be making a living changing sheets and making toast, but it's been a blessing, a lot of fun,  and I've met some great people, including people from Paris, Tasmania, and Helsinki.

I really appreciate the site that I work with, and others like it.  In this time of big boxes and vast corporations, it's great to see small enterprises, and resource and skill exchanges, still around, even thriving.  I think it's the wave of the future, at least, I hope so.

And you never know what kind of haven you might be providing, what effect, if any, your presence or art or stories or garden, or even the books lying around that you haven't read in years...... might have.  And, of course, the other way around as well.......which reminded me of this poem by Rumi.

The Guest-House

 
This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you
out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Say I Am You: Poetry Interspersed with Stories of Rumi and Shams,
 Translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks,  1994.